In the weeks following the publication of a three-part series in the Independent-Mail regarding prostitution in Anderson County, citizens and law enforcement officers have responded.

On the law enforcement side, prostitution arrests jumped in the weeks following the appearance of the series.

Since Aug. 22, the final day of the series, Anderson County sheriff’s deputies have made more than 14 arrests, some of the same person more than once. The city of Anderson Police Department has arrested one person in the same time period, according to department records.

Between January 2005 and July 2008, Anderson County sheriff’s deputies arrested 68 women for prostitution. During the entire year of 2007, the Sheriff’s Office made 24 prostitution arrests in undercover operations.

But following the series, between Aug. 22 and Oct. 7, the office arrested 10 people, some of them more than once, according to Sheriff‘s Office records.

“We recognized there was a need to clean up some areas of Anderson County, and we addressed it,” said Susann Griffin, Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman. “And we continue to address it.”

But prostitution is not the highest priority for the department, Griffin said.

“While it continues to be a problem … we have other crimes that we have to address in the county,” she said.

Prostitution is not something that can completely be eliminated, she said.

“There are not enough hours in the day, or enough manpower in the Sheriff’s office to totally eliminate criminal activity of all kinds in the county,” she said. “We try to be proactive whenever we can, but in other areas we have to be reactive.”

And the community at large has responded since the newspaper ran the series of articles.

At Shalom House Ministries in Anderson County, the calls were what the nonprofit agency’s director, Stacey Riddley, noticed when the articles ran. People wanted to help.

And all of the four women mentioned in the newspaper series either have graduated from the nonprofit’s three-, six- or nine-month programs or have moved on to the next level of their recovery, Riddley said.

So are there still women on the streets? Have the numbers gone down at all?

Riddley said doesn’t know. But what she does know is that there’s always a waiting list of women needing help through Shalom Ministries. The ministry’s 104-acre farm in Belton offers enough space for 20 women. And it’s full now, Riddley said.

“We just get so many calls anyway, because there are just not many places for women,” Riddley said. “We get calls every single day, and lots of them.”